Boko Haram Islamists are widely believed to have active cells in Jos and have attacked the city before, but the area has not been heavily affected by the extremist uprising.

The group claimed a July 2012 attack at a funeral outside the city that targeted mourners and the security services.

Plateau state, which falls on the dividing line between Nigeria's mainly Christian South and mostly Muslim north, has however seen waves of sectarian violence that has killed thousands over the last decade.

The bombings follow two separate attacks on the same bus station in a suburb of the capital, Abuja, on April 14 and May 1, that killed more than 90 people. The first was claimed by Boko Haram.

Four people were also killed on Sunday in a suicide car bomb attack in a predominantly Christian area of the northern city of Kano that had been previously targeted by the group.

It's a fundamental human yearning to be a part of something bigger than one's self, and maybe that's what drove my mate Ash to die, far from home, in a bloody foreign war against Islamic State, writes C August Elliott.